


Violent Haggling and Clever Cons

by trinketchu



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, Vasselheim Shenanigans, Vex just really likes a good deal, battle haggling, scanlan can solve any problem, shout out to Vasselheim law enforcement for putting up with VM
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-10
Updated: 2016-08-10
Packaged: 2018-08-07 23:18:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7733695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trinketchu/pseuds/trinketchu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vex gets arrested. Scanlan helps Percy get her out. It was the merchant's fault anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Violent Haggling and Clever Cons

It was all that fucking potion maker’s fault. That salesman with his smug attitude and his exorbitant prices and his stupid beard. Seriously, who charges 500 gold for a regular potion of healing?

  
Earlier in the day, Vex had gone to grab more supplies from town before the party had to head off on the road again. Despite her best efforts to convince Vanessa to give them some potions, they had been refused. She had spent the better part of the afternoon searching for an alternate salesman before reluctantly returning to the one they had dealt with before. Considering the number of times they had threatened him in their last visit, she wasn’t exactly sure how it would go. She had hoped he would be afraid enough of her that he would keep his prices low, but the opposite seemed to be true. The second he saw her, he squared his shoulders and wrinkled his nose.

  
“You have some nerve coming back here after what you did. Don’t think that I didn’t have those ‘Knick Knacks of Kaa’ appraised!” His voice was just as grating as she remembered. “Worthless! Absolutely worthless! If you wish to buy from me, you will be paying me with gold only. Understood?” He spoke with a passive aggressive tone, smiling unpleasantly.

  
“Oh, I’m sure we can come to an agreement. I need four regular potions of healing, two greater, and one superior.”

  
“Marvelous. Let me just check my wares.” He bent down behind the counter for a moment and came up holding a rack of vials. Running through them, the salesman pulled eight from the rack and placed them on the counter in from of her. “That will be 12,000 gold,” he said with a sickening smirk.

  
“Twelve thousand?” Vex repeated, disbelievingly. That was over twice what they had paid before, and for fewer potions too.

  
“Times are tough. A man has to make a living. If you can find someone else in the city who can supply you with you potions, please, feel free to cheat them instead.

  
“I’ll give you eight thousand.”

  
“Nope.”

  
“Nine thousand.”

  
“Sorry.”

  
Vex had caught one glimpse of that smug look and his eye, and, almost subconsciously, pulled her bow. With an arrow in his face, the man had tensed, clearly not expecting an open act of violence

  
“Those threats weren’t just for show, darling,” she told him, but he wasn’t looking at her anymore. Instead, he looked over her shoulder, an expression of relief coming across his face. Before Vex could figure out what had happened, she had been grabbed from behind, her bow torn from her hands as she was wrestled to the ground.

  
“Guards! Thank you so much. This crazy woman attacked me! She was going to kill me!” The salesman cried dramatically, but he smirked at Vex when the guards weren’t looking.

  
So now Vex was sitting in a holding cell in Vasselheim, whispering into her earring but getting no response. Wherever the party was, they must have been out of range. Giving up on the earring, Vex considered her options. She could wait until her party found her, but, last she’d seen them, they had been beginning a pub crawl. It would likely take them weeks to find her at that rate. Vex would just have to take action herself then.

  
After a couple of hours, the guard began to change. It left her with about a minute-long window where she would be left alone. Vex pulled off her necklace and held it through the metal bars and released Trinket. Her bear appeared on the other side of the bars and let out a soft grumble when he saw her. She instantly felt a rush of affection for him.

  
“Hey buddy, I need you to go find the group, ok?” Trinket stared at her, then looked toward the bars. He lifted a paw and began to swipe at them. “No buddy, I can’t come with you. You have to go alone. C’mon you’ll do great.” Trinket sent her one more baleful glance before walking off, sniffing the ground to catch the party’s scent.

  
A moment later a new guard walked toward her cell and peered inside. She cursed mentally as she saw his eyes widen in recognition.  
“Wait, aren’t you that woman that collected those cheating mental patients?”

  
Vex groaned.

* * *

 

 

Percy was finally enjoying a moment of peace and quiet. Their group had been drinking boisterously for a while, and, while he had grown to enjoy their company, the constant noise did get to be draining. Pike had gone off to Sarenrae’s temple early in the afternoon and Vex had left shortly after to purchase some supplies for the road. The rest of them had gone drinking. In about an hour, Keyleth had gotten so drunk that Vax had to escort her back to their rooms in the Take. Percy had lost track of Grog, but he was pretty sure he had gone to fight someone. That left Percy drinking at the bar and Scanlan entertaining the scattered patrons with a rowdy song about women of the night. Percy was feeling pleasantly buzzed, and, hearing the slight slur in his voice, he suspected Scanlan was too.

  
Generally speaking, peaceful times like that rarely lasted long for him, but he wasn’t really expecting to be tackled by the bear. Percy fell to the floor, Trinket nudging him toward the door with his head. He looked around the bar, but Vex was nowhere to be seen.

  
“Trinket, where’s Vex?” Trinket nudged him again. Percy stumbled to his feet, grabbing the counter for balance, and scanned the bar once more. Scanlan had ended his song and was now striding towards them.

  
“What the fuck is wrong with Trinket?” he asked, putting his shawm away.

  
“I don’t know,” Percy replied. “Vex isn’t with him as far as I can tell.”

  
Trinket bit down on Percy’s sleeve and began pulling him toward the door, giving him a distressed look.

  
“Did something happen to Vex, Trinket?”

  
Trinket gave him a look that clearly said “duh” and tugged on his sleeve more insistently. Percy looked to Scanlan who shrugged back at him and allowed Trinket to pull him along. They moved at a quick pace through the city, brushing past people in the crowded street. They came to a stop outside the city jail where Keyleth and Tiberius had been held for cheating in the Crucible. Outside the jail stood a guard, one of the ones that they had talked to to get them released. Percy looked to Trinket.

  
“Vex is in jail?” Trinket gave a look of affirmation. Percy turned to Scanlan. “This sort of stuff is really more your area of expertise.” To Percy’s surprise, Scanlan shook his head.

  
“Nope, you have to do this one. They think I’m a lawyer, remember? We need someone with authority.” He placed his finger to his earring. “Vex? Can you hear me?” A second later a whispered reply sounded in his ear.

  
_“Scanlan? Are you here? Is Trinket with you?”_

  
“Yeah, I have him and Percy with me. Did the guards offer you bail, or do we have to do this the old fashioned way?”

  
_“I don’t think they’re offering bail. I almost shot that merchant.”_

  
“Alright, do they still think you work at a mental hospital?”

  
_“Yeah”_

  
“You sit tight and let me do my thing.”

  
Scanlan took his finger off the earring and pulled Percy around the corner outside the sight of the guard. He turned to Percy, eyes running up and down his body in a contemplative way.

  
“What exactly are you staring at me for?” Percy asked, slightly disturbed.

  
“I’m thinking a doctor. Like Vex is your sexy nurse and you’ve come to get her out of jail. A real emotional performance,” Scanlan suggested. He circled Percy, hand on his chin, occasionally pulling at his jacket or brushing off dirt. “I’ll just make some slight adjustments.”

  
Before Percy could ask what he meant, arcane sparks emerged from Scanlan fingertips, and, in his peripheral vision, he could see his clothing begin to shift. Glancing down, he saw that his jacket, once blue, was now a crisp white, the buttons that had adorned it now missing. In addition, a mass-less stethoscope now hung from his neck. Scanlan gave him a nod of approval.

  
“Perfect, now go get ‘em, tiger.” Before Percy could ask him why he couldn’t just do this as himself, Scanlan pushed him around the corner and toward the guard.

  
Still slightly buzzed, Percy stumbled a bit as he approached the man, earning a quizzical look. He righted himself, pulling his jacket straight, and approached the man as confidently as he could, and, considering that he was already dressed as a doctor, reluctantly chose to go along with Scanlan's plan.

“Excuse me, sir. It seems as though you have my nurse in your custody. I’ve come to bail her out.”

  
he guard gave him a suspicious glance before saying, “Sorry, she attacked a merchant. No bail offered. You be better off finding yourself a new nurse anyway. This one’s pretty violent.”

  
“No, she’s not… There’s, uh, been a misunderstanding, you see.”

  
“A misunderstanding? She nearly put an arrow through a merchant’s skull!”

  
Scanlan’s voice hissed in Percy’s ear “Make something up! She’s been drugged or something!”

  
“You see, there was an incident at the hospital. She was… collecting some potions for our patients from a shelf, and a few of them fell on her. Some of them can have some nasty side effects. Such a random combination of potions can result in very erratic behavior. I was going to treat her, but she slipped off when I wasn’t looking.” Percy did his best to appear concerned. “I’m afraid if she isn’t treated soon, her condition will continue to worsen.”

  
The guard’s expression shifted slightly, he still looked somewhat skeptical, but he didn’t appear to be dismissing Percy as he was before. “She seems perfectly fine right now.” Percy paused a moment.

  
“Well, uh… That’s because—“

  
“Help! Help me! Please it’s so cold in here!” Vex’s voice, dramatic in tone, came from the inside of the jail.

  
“Oh dear,” Percy said. “It seems that another fit is beginning. They’ll only become more frequent, I’m afraid.”

  
The guard’s eyes widened as he walked rushed toward Vex’s cell, Percy following behind him. She was sitting on the floor near the bars, pulling on her hair, now loose from its braid. She had done well to make herself look distressed. Her clothes were untidy, and Percy could see tear tracks running down her cheeks. Her eyes lit up in feigned joy when she saw him.

  
“Doctor! Oh thank goodness, please get me out of here. I don’t know why I’m here. My head hurts so badly.” She said hysterically, clutching at the bars.

  
Percy turned back to the guard. “If I don’t treat her quickly, it might do irreparable damage.”

  
The guard hesitated a moment, looking between Percy and Vex, and then sighed. “Fine take her and get out. Just make sure she doesn’t pull anything else like this.” He pulled out a thick ring of keys and unlocked Vex’s cell. Vex rushed out the door and into Percy’s arms, startling him. After a moment she pulled back, winked at him, and ran out the door.

  
Percy ran after her, yelling a quick “Sorry!” to the guard before returning to the spot where Scanlan was waiting.  
When he arrived, Vex was already there. Scanlan gave him a clap on the back.

  
“Excellent acting, Percy! I couldn’t have done it better myself,” Scanlan congratulated him. “I mean I could have, but it was still pretty good. I could make a bard out of you yet.

“No thank you.” Percy turned his attention to Vex. “What were you thinking? Pulling your bow on a merchant?” A murderous glint settled in Vex’s

“Percy, Scanlan, come with me, darlings. We have some potions to collect.”

**Author's Note:**

> So that happened. The show refuses to let my children be safe and have fun, so I will write it for them. I'm also trinketchu on tumblr if you wanna hit me up there. Thanks for reading!


End file.
